MAYBE IT'S JUST the fantastical effects of living so close to Disneyland, but many citizens of Orange County seem to be growing more distant from reality.

As voters there go to the polls today to decide whether or not to raise their local sales tax to rescue the county from bankruptcy -- brought on by a Ponzi investment scheme cooked up by their (now-indicted) former treasurer -- surveys show the tax plan likely to lose overwhelmingly.

Failure of the reasonable plan would bring about not only an extended bankruptcy for Orange County -- which will be more expensive in the long run for local residents than the sales tax -- but also an adverse impact on the entire municipal bond market, which may spill over into the financing budgets of other California communities.

Orange County, birthplace of the anti- tax movement, symbolizes the self-cancelling views that distort our politics: citizens demand an extravagant level of service, from schools to swimming pools, but don't want to pay for them when the bill comes due. It's a self-indulgent attitude that is just plain, well, goofy.